WTCC: Lopez leads practice by three seconds

Jose Maria Lopez was fastest in the second World Touring Car Championship practice session at the Nurburgring Nordschleife, lapping his Citroen C-Elysee almost three seconds quicker than anyone else.

With rain overnight having dampened the circuit, Lopez backed up his session-topping pace from Thursday evening's first practice with the fastest time on Friday morning on an ever-drying track.

Lopez had slipped to 10th while he was on his final lap of the hour-long session, but recorded a fastest time of 9m41.561s shortly before the chequered flag, putting him five seconds clear of the pack at that point.

Late improvements from Lada drivers Hugo Valente and Gabriele Tarquini, the latter jumping Valente for second after the chequered flag had fallen, restored some pride in the pack - but Lopez's pace in the damp start to the session was ominous, with wetter weather expected in Friday afternoon's qualifying session.

Following news of Honda's exclusion from the previous two WTCC events earlier in the morning, Norbert Michelisz was the best of the marque's contingent in fourth.

Teammates Tiago Monteiro and Rob Huff were eighth and 14th respectively, the latter suffering a second session-ending off of the weekend in the final few minutes of the session - though Huff's Turn 1 incident was far less violent than his first practice crash.

Nicky Catsburg was shuffled back to fifth in the third Lada Vesta by his team-mates' late improvements, but finished comfortably faster than sixth-place Yvan Muller in the second factory C-Elysee, with independent driver Tom Chilton seventh, once again fastest of the Sebastien Loeb Racing contingent. Chilton's team-mates Mehdi Bennani and Gregoire Demoustier completed the top 10 behind Monteiro.

Sabine Schmitz was 15th after damaging the front-left of her Munnich Motorsport Chevrolet Cruze in an off at Aremberg, while neither of Polestar's Fredrik Ekblom or Thed Bjork completed a timed lap.

Originally on Autosport.com